moving forward

Why do I feel like what I am about to write is something I have written and thought about so many times before? Because............. it is. Once again I am having the thoughts about how the last 10 years of my life have flown by like a blur. WOW 10 years! that’s a long time to be in a fog. Here is how it went: I was an 18 year old girl in high school barely going to school , detached , damaged and searching for someone to save me. In comes a beautiful boy from Miami , enlisted in the US Navy, who is also searching for someone to fill some gaps he has. We meet , fall in and out of love a few times and somehow manage to stay together. Next thing I know I am pregnant (still 18) and my mom is planning a make shift wedding without me knowing. (who throws a SURPRISE wedding? is that even legal?) I was engaged but wasn’t thinking about anything other than the baby growing inside me and how the heck I was going to manage. I was told on a Monday that we were getting married on a Friday night in a chapel that this women had in her back yard. I knew I was in love with my then Fiancé and it was the right thing to do. But the actual process and that week in my life is a gigantic blur. Very soon after I had my first born, Hollie and very soon after that came Sept 11. 2001 and the deployment of my new husband for 7 months.That time in my life is also a blur. He returned finally and quickly we had another baby, Sarah. Soon after another 7 month deployment. Then it was time to move. We got orders to Pax River MD. Very far from home and everyone and everything I knew. I welcomed the change because a lot of the reasons why I considered myself damaged came from my home town. That being said, it was still a scary and life changing experience to move far away with 2 young children and a man I hadn’t spent a great deal of time with. The 3 years in MD where all in all good. The first year and half my husband and I got to know each other again. We tried desperately to figure out how this parenting thing works. We met a lot of new people who all had something new to teach us. My husband got a second job and once again, I barely saw him. The money he was bringing in was nice but our connection we were working so hard on establishing was growing weak again. Somewhere in there our 3rd daughter was born, Juliet. MD was a blur.... Finally it was time to move again and my home town had an opening. It was sea duty again which meant that once again he would have to leave for a significant period of time. SO, home we went. I was apprehensive because my relationship with my mom was very rocky at the time and it fueled a lot of my inner battles that went on inside me. None the less I felt like I had grown into someone who could handle things better now than I did before I left. We have been back here for 3 years now. We recently finished the 3rd 7 month deployment of our marriage. Things seem less blurry right now. Although there are still weeks that go by that I cant really say that I am fully aware of. so what is this blurriness? is it a defense mechanism? a way that my brain deals with stress and turmoil? A lack of memory? an excuse? I am not really sure. I just know that I want it to stop. I don’t want to look back at my life and see nothing. I do have fond memories with my girls and special moments that are memorable and stand out. But all in all its hard to find them. I think now and have thought before that I need more purpose in my life. a focus outside of just my family. at the same time I feel like my family deserves all my focus, what little of it there is. yet again, internal battle. I have talked with others who have similar stories to mine who work outside of their home and some wish for my life of solely caring for the kids and family and others utterly enjoy their own life away and then feel refreshed and better able to focus on their family when they are there. I don’t know which one I am. I think a little bit of both. I remember myself as a young teenager, full of dreams and ambition. I remember telling my mom about my dreams and where I wanted to go in life and her just looking back at me with amazement because she would always say that she had no ambition. I haven’t lost my ambition. it has just been misplaced somewhere over the years. lost in the blur. But now that the kids are getting older and more into their own lives (well Juliet is only 3 but she longs for "a big girl school of her own like sisters") my thoughts begin to wonder back to those dreams I once had. They have drastically changed , the more reality I have experienced. But they aren’t dead. Where does that leave me? well I am currently dreaming of nursing school. Something I think I would excel at and the money isn’t bad either. With a new transfer quickly approaching, it is difficult to follow through. My husband just made chief boards! an amazing accomplishment that may or may not drastically change our lives in the near future. We have put in for orders and are due to transfer in November of this year. however if he is selected to become a chief those orders will no longer be valid and our future is all a huge ? again. This is all driving me crazy because I am a very impatient person who wants to know what the next 5 steps are in my life. Right now I know nothing. So that leads me to search for an online school that I can start taking classes now to take up time and make me feel productive and finish up some core classes so that when we DO finally move I can hopefully get into a nursing program. Wow after thinking about and typing all of that I am exhausted! I feel better though just recording all of that so I can move forward!!!!!